Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to respond to the comments about rural housing and people who live in rural areas. We need people to live in rural Ireland and we need to grant planning permission for people to do so. Those people are not some kind of a pollutant to be stamped out. Some people would think that was the case. In fact, the vast majority of people living in rural Ireland are much more efficient ecologically than people living in many other areas. I agree that rural Ireland is not dying and that there is vibrancy and energy there. The problem, however, is the lack of investment necessary to allow those communities to flourish in the way that they might. That is certainly the case in many places.

I frequently come across people in my constituency who cannot get work in the areas in which they live. They have to travel long distances to work. When those people get there, they discover they could do their work from anywhere if they had broadband. Broadband was mentioned earlier and we are putting in hubs in some areas where work is under way. What we really need to do, however, is recognise that while there has been great investment, and reference was made to corporation tax and investment in large corporations and foreign direct investment, there has not been as much emphasis on growing our domestic economy and developing the entrepreneurs and enterprises needed in rural areas, small towns and villages. That is a big job of work and it will require a new emphasis in politics over the next decade.

We are not in different places in the context of our views on this subject. We should be coming at it with a unified approach to developing solutions that will serve everyone. To do that, we have to recognise that there are major deficits. Those deficits are real, not imagined. People know they exist because of their life experience.

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